Spain Pull Away at the Top: The FIFA Top 25 Womens National Teams After the October 2026 Release

The 25 highest ranked womens national teams, October 2026

FIFA publishes the womens ranking a few times a year, after the international match windows. The release of Tuesday 20 October 2026 is the latest one and replaces the edition of 16 June 2026. It counted 183 international matches played between the two releases, including European and African qualifiers for the 2027 Womens World Cup in Brazil, African Olympic qualifiers and friendlies. Spain stayed first for the fifth release in a row, and the first nine places did not change at all.

The table is tight below the leader. Only 7.76 points separate the United States in second from Germany in third, and England in fourth are another 9.15 points back. Spain, by contrast, have opened a clear gap: 79.12 points now, against 47.44 in June 2026 and less than two points in August 2025, when FIFA said the United States were only just behind as Spain regained first place. Denmark are the only new name in the top ten, back there for the first time since August 2010, while the Netherlands slipped to 11th.

374.47 points from 1st to 25th: Spain lead on 2,121.50 and Austria hold 25th on 1,747.03. The whole top ten fits inside a band of 201.36 points.

Points and movement of every team in the top 25 since the June 2026 release

The table compares each team with its position and points on 16 June 2026. Points changes are BusinessStats calculations from the two official releases. For three teams in the 21 to 25 range, Finland, Scotland and Austria, we could not confirm the June position at an official source, so the movement column is left blank rather than estimated.

Sources: FIFA/Coca-Cola Womens World Ranking releases of 16 June 2026 and 20 October 2026; June positions of Ireland and Portugal from the FIFA June 2026 release note and the Portuguese federation coverage of that release. Points changes are BusinessStats calculations.

Three things stand out. First, the top nine are identical to June, so the October window rewarded or punished teams only at the margins. Second, the biggest points gain in the top 25 belongs to the leader: Spain added 16.14 points by taking a win and a draw from two away games in the United States, while the Americans lost 15.54. Third, the most volatile zone is between 10th and 20th, where ten of the eleven teams changed position and four of them, Denmark, South Korea, China and Belgium, moved two places.

The order of the top 25 is also a reminder of who has won the biggest prizes. Four of the five highest ranked teams, Spain, the United States, Germany and Japan, have lifted the Womens World Cup, a record set out in detail in our analysis of Womens World Cup title winners by year. Norway, the 1995 champions, are 13th. The ranking itself does not count trophies, though; it measures results over many matches, which is why England can be fourth without a world title.

Who gained and who lost points among the top 20 between June and October 2026

Because the ranking is a points exchange, a team that beats expectations takes points from its opponent. The clearest example in this release is Denmark against Canada. Denmark won one and drew one of two away games in Canada, gained exactly 9.94 points and climbed two places to tenth; Canada lost exactly 9.94 points and stayed ninth only because the teams below them were further back. South Korea gained 10.45 points and rose two places to 17th, and Iceland added 7.43 to overtake China.

Spain up, Italy down most: Spain gained 16.14 points and Italy lost 20.24, the largest drop in the top 20, which cost Italy one place to 14th.

Why Spain are pulling away from the United States

The June 2026 edition already showed Spain stretching their lead: they had beaten England and Iceland and reached 2,105.36 points, 47.44 ahead of the United States on 2,057.92. FIFA described that total as a new benchmark for Spain. The October double header in the United States then settled the question for the rest of 2026. Spain won one and drew one, and the points exchange widened the lead to 79.12.

Germany are the team closing in on second place. They won both home friendlies in October, gained 5.63 points and now trail the United States by 7.76. England, who had climbed to third in April 2026 after a qualifying win over Spain, dropped back to fourth in June and lost a further 1.66 points in October. Japan, the 2011 world champions, are fifth after winning all six of their matches at the AFC Womens Asian Cup earlier in 2026. The full record of how often these countries reach the finals is in our ranking of the most Womens World Cup appearances.

Gaps are BusinessStats calculations from the FIFA release of 20 October 2026.

Leaders of the six confederations and how the top 50 splits

Europe dominates the ranking in depth. UEFA teams take 16 of the top 25 places and 27 of the top 50, while the Asian confederation, the AFC, is the clear second force with five teams in the top 25, led by Japan in fifth and North Korea in 12th. North and Central America (CONCACAF) and South America (CONMEBOL) each have two teams in the top 25 and six in the top 50. Africa and Oceania each have one team in the top 50.

Europe holds 54 percent of the top 50: 27 UEFA teams, against 9 from Asia, 6 each from CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, and 1 each from Africa and Oceania.

Source: FIFA/Coca-Cola Womens World Ranking, 20 October 2026. Team counts are BusinessStats tallies.

The African picture is the most fluid. Nigeria are still the highest ranked African team, but they had the biggest points drop of any nation in the release, minus 83.54, and fell seven places from 36th to 43rd. Cameroon, who won the continental title, rose nine places to 62nd. New Zealand remain far ahead in Oceania at 33rd. The way these regional blocs feed places at the finals is covered in our page on World Cup teams by confederation, and the separate men table is on our world ranking of national soccer teams.

Malawi, Tanzania and Cameroon: the biggest movers of the October 2026 release

Outside the elite, the October release was shaped by the Womens Africa Cup of Nations. Malawi climbed 49 places to 104th after reaching the final and qualifying for the 2027 Womens World Cup, and their gain of 158.44 points was the largest of any team. Tanzania rose 11 places to 111th, Burkina Faso nine places to 109th and Cameroon nine places to 62nd. Vanuatu, in Oceania, went up eight places to 100th. At the other end, Egypt dropped 14 places to 113th after losing all three of their tournament matches, Zimbabwe fell nine places to 136th and DR Congo eight places to 114th.

Malawi up 49 places: the largest climb of the release, driven by a run to the Womens Africa Cup of Nations final and World Cup qualification.

Several European sides also reached new highs. Slovenia climbed two places to 36th, their best ever position. The Republic of Ireland held 21st, the highest place in their history, which they first reached in June 2026, and Turkiye stayed inside the top 50 at 47th after making their debut there in June. These quieter gains show how far the ranking now reaches beyond the established powers.

How many teams are in the FIFA womens ranking?

The ranking now covers 198 of the 211 FIFA member associations. That total was first reached in December 2025, when Chad and Libya were added. It fell to 197 in April 2026, when the British Virgin Islands were removed after four years without a match, and returned to 198 in June 2026 when Sudan entered the table. October 2026 brought no new entries and no removals. The count has grown steadily: FIFA listed 122 teams in June 2017, a record 181 in June 2022, 187 in December 2022 and 192 in December 2023.

From 122 to 198 teams: the womens ranking covered 76 more national teams in October 2026 than in June 2017; 13 FIFA members are still unranked.

Source: FIFA release notes for each edition.

How FIFA calculates the womens ranking points

The womens ranking was launched in 2003, ten years after the mens ranking, and it is built on a rating system that FIFA describes as a measure of actual strength. The data goes back to the first official womens international, France against the Netherlands on 17 April 1971. Every match counted in a release moves the rating of both teams.

The scale is set so that the best teams sit above 2,000 points and newcomers start at around 1,000. That is why only the top four, Spain, the United States, Germany and England, are above 2,000 in October 2026. Because the points one team gains are taken from its opponent, the system is close to zero sum: Denmark gained exactly what Canada lost in their two October games. A team that stops playing does not lose points, but it is removed from the published list after four years without a match, as the British Virgin Islands were in April 2026. New teams appear once they have played enough matches against ranked opponents.

Two practical effects follow. Teams that play strong opponents often, as the European nations do in the Nations League and World Cup qualifying, have more chances to gain or lose large amounts. And a single tournament can move a mid ranked team dramatically, as Malawi showed in October. The ranking carries the name of Coca-Cola, one of the sponsors behind the FIFA marketing rights revenue.

Every team that has been number one since the ranking began

Only four teams have ever topped the FIFA womens ranking: the United States, Germany, Sweden and Spain. Until August 2023 the position had only ever been held by the United States and Germany. Sweden broke that pattern after the 2023 Womens World Cup, and Spain became the fourth number one in December 2023, four months after winning that tournament.

Sources: FIFA ranking release notes of 24 March 2017, 23 June 2017, 25 August 2023, 15 December 2023, 7 August 2025 and 20 October 2026; DFB report of the March 2017 ranking. The 2008 and 2014 changes are as reported at the time of those releases.

The United States are the most dominant number one in the history of the ranking. Their run from June 2017 lasted until August 2023, and FIFA noted in December 2022 that first place had been theirs since 2017. The two teams that broke the American hold in recent years did so straight after a World Cup, which carries the highest match weighting. By our count Spain have now been first in eight releases: December 2023, March 2024 and June 2024, then every edition from August 2025 to October 2026. Their world title is part of the story told in our page on the all time top scorers at the Womens World Cup, and the financial side of that tournament is in our report on Womens World Cup prize money.

The December 2026 release and the road to Brazil 2027

The next FIFA womens ranking is due on 7 December 2026. It will be the last release of 2026. The tournament itself runs in Brazil from 24 June to 25 July 2027 with 32 teams, and it will be the last edition at that size before the field expands to 48 teams in 2031.

A lead of 79.12 points is large by the standards of this ranking: between June and October 2026 no team in the top 20 moved by more than 20.24 points. The more open contest is for second: the United States, Germany and England are covered by 16.91 points. Readers comparing team strength with tournament odds can look at our model of World Cup win probabilities by team, which covers the mens game, and at the 2023 Womens World Cup payout per team, which shows what each finishing position was worth in the last edition.

Data notes and how to read this page

The FIFA ranking measures results, not squad value, budgets or titles, and FIFA describes it as a guide to relative strength rather than a prediction. It also moves only on release days, so a match played the day after a release is not reflected until the next edition. For the governance and money behind the competition see our overview of FIFA statistics and the data on FIFA revenue by year.

The womens ranking in eight numbers

Questions about the FIFA womens world ranking